In the field of display technology an area of interest (AOI) is an area in an image that has particular interest for a given reason. An area of interest may be part (or all) of an image that it is desired to emphasize or to deemphasize. It has been a problem to identify or to tag an AOI in an image, e.g., to specify what part of an image is an AOI, and once identified it has been a problem to indicate what is to be done with the AOI, e.g., whether and how to emphasize or to deemphasize the AOI. This becomes even more difficult as images become represented by more and more data that has to be understood, decoded, processed, and so on within a relatively strict time allotment to provide a display signal to a display to show an image on the display.
Metadata has several different definitions, such as, for example, metadata is data about data, metadata is information about data, metadata is information about information, and so on.
An example of metadata and its use and value may be, for example, as follows: “1 2 3 4 5” is data which without additional context, is meaningless. With additional information being provided (metadata being such additional information) such as, this number is a “ZIP code”, a person can understand that “1 2 3 4 5” refers to a particular address area used in the U.S. Postal System. Other more sophisticated definitions of metadata include metadata is optional, structured, and coded data that are publically available and that describe the characteristics of information bearing entities to aid in the identification, discovery, assessment and management of the described entities.
An example of using metadata is in the use of MPEG-7 standards. MPEG-7 is an ISO standard developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group. MPEG-7 can be considered the multimedia standard for the fixed and mobile web enabling integration of multiple paradigms. Another description of MPEG-7 is a standard for describing the multimedia content data that supports some degree of interpretation of the information meaning that can be passed to or accessed by a device or a computer code. Thus, MPEG-7 is an example of how metadata may be used in video technology.
Various types of display devices are used to show images for viewing and/or for projection such that the projected image ultimately may be viewed. Two exemplary displays include passive displays and light emitting displays. Examples of a passive display are liquid crystal displays, digital micromirror displays, and so on. Examples of light emitting displays are cathode ray tube displays (CRT), plasma displays, and so on. In a passive display a light modulating device, e.g., a liquid crystal device or digital micromirror device, modulates light from a light source to create bright and dark portions and color portions of an image; the respective portions are composed of pixels, and as is well known, a typical image formed on a liquid crystal display is made up of a collection of many pixels. Various types of light sources are available to illuminate the modulator of a passive display, such as, for example, fluorescent tubes, light emitting diodes (LED), and so on. In light emitting displays the pixels are formed by individual light emitting parts of the display itself, such as, for example, light emitting phosphors in a CRT.
Displays may be used to show various types of images, e.g., still images or moving images (sometimes referred to as motion pictures, movies and so on). A common type of image is a video image that is shown on a display, for example, on a television or monitor or via a projector. A video image may be a still picture or a moving picture, e.g., a motion picture or movie. In a motion picture a sequence of images is shown on the display, and each image may include a small difference from the preceding image so as to create the appearance of motion, such as, for example, a person walking, running, waving, and/or speaking, a ball moving a in sports game, an aircraft flying through the air, and so on.
There are various definitions of video and video images, which may change from time to time as technology changes; and there may be various other ways of showing images on displays that are different from what may be referred to as “video technology.” In the interest of brevity all images referred to herein, whether still images or moving images or images that portray a motion type of action or occurrence will be referred to collectively as video image, video or simply as image, regardless of the actual type of image(s), technique for forming and/or showing the image(s) and so on.
Also, it will be appreciated that there are various sources of image signals that can be provided for use by display systems to cause the showing of one or more images on a display for direct viewing and/or for projection. Examples of sources of such image signals are those transmitted to a television via over-the-air broadcast transmission, cable connection, satellite, DVD (Digital Visio Disk), tape, compact disk, Blu-Ray, HD DVD (high definition digital video disk), a network, such as, for example, the internet or some other network, whether wide area, local area, or other type, and so on. The initial source of image signals, may be a television camera photographing, videotaping or the like of a scene for a movie; a personal digital camera, mobile phone or the like; a camera or other device that stores images drawn by cartoonists; a computer system that generates images, and so on. Other examples of initial sources of image signals also may exist or come into existence in the future.
An editor person may edit a video before the video is released, e.g., provided to a consumer who wishes to view a movie, to a movie theater for presentation to customers, and so on. The editor may select which scenes or portions of scenes should be included in the video and which should be discarded and/or may elect to highlight part of an image by zooming in on an object in the image, such as, for example, the face of a person, a ball in a game, and so on. The person who directs making of a movie, e.g., the director, also may be considered an editor in that such person may determine the composition of a scene, how actors should behave in the scene, etc. Another possibility is that the editor is a reviewer or reviewing board that makes decisions as to what is appropriate in a movie to show to persons of various ages, e.g., based on violence content, sex content and so on.